Week Ahead: It's All About Jobs

From Friday's Unemployment Report to the Challenger Job Cut Report, a look at what to watch for next week

Next week will be all about the labor market with several reports on tap, capped with the all-important monthly jobs report on Friday.

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The ADP Employment Report is set to be released on Wednesday and the Challenger, Gray & Christmas job cut report on Thursday.

The ADP Employment Report, which tracks how many jobs were added to private-sector payrolls is not as closely watched as Friday's jobs report, which shows the current unemployment rate and how many jobs were added overall in the month of November, but it does give an early indication of what to expect.

The ADP report showed 158,000 private-sector jobs added in October and the official jobs report was also positive with 171,000 jobs added overall that month. The lingering impact of superstorm Sandy could affect the latest jobs report, some economists suspect.

Also significant next week is the Institute for Supply Management's monthly manufacturing index, which gives insight into whether the manufacturing sector expanded or contracted in the month of November. This is usually a big market mover.

In October, the manufacturing gauge expanded for the second month in a row following three months of contraction. Also on Wednesday, the ISM monthly non-manufacturing index comes out which gives an overview of how the services industry performed in November. Last month the index expanded for the 39th consecutive month.